


Harvest Home

by opalmatrix



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Female Friendship, Festivals, Food, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25381705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg enjoy Magrat's gala harvest festival, each in her own way.
Relationships: Gytha "Nanny" Ogg & Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16
Collections: Eat Drink and Make Merry 2020





	Harvest Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [facethestrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/facethestrange/gifts).



> The recipient was prepared to enjoy whatever I came up with, so that's what this is! Thank you, facethestrange, and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks also to my lovely betas, [Whymzycal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whymzycal) and [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer).

The cottage door was blue.

Esme hardly had a moment to take this in when the door opened, and Lily came out. She was wearing her best dress, blue like the door, and a bonnet of fine straw with matching blue ribbons. _Showin' off,_ thought Esme.

"Esme, poppet! Just the girl I wanted to see. Come along with me, my duck." Lily walked around the corner of the cottage toward the back garden, beckoning her younger sister to follow. Esme followed slowly. The cottage door was blue. Something was wrong with that.

The Weatherwax home had its own little orchard, half a dozen trees of varying types and ages. A small step-ladder allowed the family to pluck fruit from the higher branches. Today it was topped with a basket of beautiful apples. 

"Look, Esme!" said Lily, smiling sweetly. "I saved the last of the Carrock Beauties for the two of us!" She took one of the apples and held it out to Esme. It was lovely, one cheek golden and the other blushing red. Esme's mouth watered: she thought she could smell its sweet perfume from where she stood.

She walked forward slowly and took the apple, turning it over in her hand. Lily plucked the next apple from the top of the fruit in the basket and took a large bite. It crunched invitingly, and the sweet smell of the fruit was everywhere. Lily chewed and swallowed. "What's the matter, Esme? Don't you want it?"

The door was blue. And now, so was the apple. "I don't want it," Esme said. "It's bad inside."

Lily snatched the apple from her sister and threw it against one of the trees. It smashed, bits of ivory flesh, red peel and gold flying everywhere. Lily set her own apple carefully on the step below the basket. She stalked toward Esme.

Granny Weatherwax opened her eyes to see the rafters of her own little cottage. Lily was gone, caught in her own mirrors. As Granny sat up, frowning, she remembered the day. The cottage door hadn't been blue, of course. It had been a worn, washed red, like most of the doors hereabouts. But the day with Lily and the apples had happened. Years afterward, Granny had decided that Lily hadn't meant to actually poison her little sister, but merely to stupefy her and perhaps plant a few choice ideas in her head for the elder girl's future use. 

_That must've been why I knew the apple was wrong. I went down the trousers of time, or whatever Mustrum Ridcully was babblin' about, and sent meself a message with that blue door._

Interesting, but not much use. It wasn't like she'd purposefully done anything. She got up and made her bed, then set the teakettle on. There wasn't much time to waste: it was the day of the harvest festival, just as it had been back when Lily tried to trick her with the tainted apple. That's why Lily had been all dressed up.

After setting the cottage to rights, Granny put on her own best dress, black like the other two, and brushed off her black hat. A witch didn't need satin ribbons to make the right impression.

Time to see what nonsense Magrat had put together. Every household in Lancre had been fairly bubbling about the queen's plans for the harvest festival. The royal princess, little Esme, had become totally besotted with a book of tales from Klatch, and Magrat had decided that the coming festival would be a Klatchian Extravaganza. As though the good old ways with the harvest supper and the Lancre Morris Men dancing weren't enough. Magrat was as wet as ever, with her notions, but Granny was prepared to be amused and appalled in equal measure. 

There was certainly quite a crowd assembled in the field below the castle when Granny arrived. Booths had been set up like a market day, only fancier, with colored banners erratically stitched with what the townsfolk of Lancre imagined were Klatchian devices and designs. Columns of smoke announced outdoor cooking in progress, and Granny could smell roast meat. Rows of trestle tables and benches were arranged along the side of the square formed by the booths. At one corner of the square, a somewhat tipsy-looking pavilion showed the arms of the Kingdom of Lancre. The entrance to the square was a fragile gateway of light timbers; from its cross-piece hung a banner proclaiming _101 Days of Klatch_.

Once Granny Weatherwax was almost below it, she could see that someone had added a little scribbled wedge and a naught, making the number _1001_ instead. Our Shawn was handy at most things, but arithmetic wasn't one of them.

"Esme Weatherwax!" Nanny Ogg stood up and waved her hat, making a show as usual. But Gytha's show was a show of something honest, not like Lily's. Granny marched over to the table, relieved to see that there were several seats cleared by Gytha. Granny's benevolence didn't extend to dealing with sticky little hands today. She nodded at Gytha's plate, which showed only the faintest remains of a meal. "What've they got?"

"Roast mutton done up foreign, spices and enough garlic to take a vampire's head clean off. Flat bread, like a roll that's been sat on. Pastries with outlandish fillin's, like greens and salty cheese. Klatchian-style curry: not what I'd make, but it's tasty. Coffee, for them as like it. Stuffed dates, That sort o' thing. Plus some honest mutton-and-turnip pasties, cider, and beer. Want me to fetch you a plate?" 

"No need," said a familiar voice behind Granny. Agnes Nitt had a pottery plate in each hand. She slid one carefully onto the table in front of Esme and then went to sit down at Nanny Ogg's other side with her own.

"You've got nothin' to drink," said Nanny. "What's your choice, Esme? Agnes?"

"Well water, if they have it," said Granny. "Or fresh cider, if not."

"That place with the green and yellow banner has some mint drink," said Agnes. "I liked the sample they offered, but I had my hands too full to fetch it back."

Nanny Ogg bustled off. Granny Weatherwax regarded her plate. There were cubes of meat onna stick, some sort of cucumber dish, a flat round of bread twice the size of her hand, a triangle of folded pastry, a couple of dates stuffed with something white, and an apple.

The apple was a perfect Carrock Beauty, one cheek golden and the other blushing red.

Just then some musicians struck up a strange but jolly tune, playing a nasal wind instrument of some sort, a big lute, and a drum shaped like a large pickle crock. Some young women in colorful but outlandish dresses joined hands and began to dance in a ring, following the directions of a foreign-looking gent beating on a tambourine. After they'd danced one figure, the leader of the troop urged the gathering townsfolk to join in, and a dozen of them did.

While Agnes was watching them, Granny gingerly picked up the apple and set it in the middle of the table. 

Nanny Ogg reappeared with a small stack of tumblers. One of Magrat's girls from the castle trailed in her wake, huffing with the effort of carrying two full pitchers. "That mint stuff and some of Banty Humber's best cider, Esme," announced Nanny. "Pour Granny a glass, girl."

The cider was pale gold, barely fizzy. The fresh, tart scent of it rose in the air as it splashed into the cup. Agnes relieved the girl of the other pitcher and got herself a tumblerful of the mint drink, equally tart under the cool, herbal note of the mint. "What's in that stuff, anyway?" Granny Weatherwax asked.

"Mint, sugar, and white vinegar," said Agnes. Granny's nosed twitched. Vinegar! she thought.

But Nanny Ogg was nodding. "Like a fruit shrub but with mint. Here, let me try it, Agnes." She took the pitcher.

Granny Weatherwax watched Agnes put some of the cucumbers on her flat bread, slide a couple of blocks of the grilled meat onto it, and roll up the result. The youngest witch took a big bite and chewed, her eyes half-closed with contentment, like old Greebo with a fish head.

Granny gingerly dabbed one of her own chunks of mutton in the cucumber mess and tasted it. The creamy sauce was tart and fresh with dill and green onions, cooling the spices on the meat. Her mouth yearned for more after she swallowed it. She put it all together on the bread as Agnes had done, rolled it up, and took a bite.

Nanny Ogg watched her with a grin. "Tastes a treat, don't it, Esme? Who'd a thought it?"

Granny Weatherwax swallowed and looked over at the dancers, who were now doing a sort of complicated figure. Some of the Lancre Morris Men had joined them, the bells on their legs ringing out sweet and clear over the exotic music. "S' all right for foreign truck," Granny said, at last.

"Oh, look," said Agnes, taking a breather from her meat. "The queen is coming this way."

There was Magrat, in a dress of red and gold with a wreath of asters on her head instead of her coronet. She was carrying a small tray. "Ooh," said Nanny Ogg. "Looks like pastries. I could do with some more of 'em."

"You're naught but a glutton, Gytha Ogg," muttered Granny Weatherwax, but there was no heat to her words. Nanny's appetites harmed no one. She'd be the first to share her bread in a time of real hunger.

"Granny! Nanny! And young Agnes!" exclaimed Magrat, her smile wide, her eyes anxious. "Do have some of these birds' nest pastries! Verence —His Majesty—loves them!"

She put the tray carefully on the table, nearest Nanny Ogg. Granny spared it a brief glance and wrinkled her nose. "Birds' nests! What will they think of next?" she said, disgusted. 

Magrat gave her a startled look, but someone over by the pavilion was shouting "Your Majesty! Queen Magrat!" in urgent tones. "Oh dear," she breathed, and hurried off at a dangerously unregal pace.

Nanny Ogg shook her head. "You're a ruddy snob, Esme. They're just pastries what _look_ like bird's nests."

Granny reluctantly looked at the tray again. Long shreds of something sticky were coiled into nests holding a few large almonds each. "What's the grass, then?" she asked.

Agnes boldly tore off a bit of one nest and popped it into her mouth. Her eyebrows shot up and she smiled. "Pastry and honey," she said stickily. "'S wonderful."

Nanny grabbed one and popped it into her mouth whole, chewing with gusto. "Your loss, Esme," she managed, after a moment.

"Later," growled Granny. Honey. It could even be from her own bees: she'd given Gurty Damper a couple of jars just last week. She took another bite of her rolled-up sandwich. It was tasty, no argument about that. You couldn't do better than Lancre mutton, even dressed up this way. A fresh wind tugged gently at her hat, and the sun was shining fair for the hay harvest. More folk were arriving, walking through the rickety gateway, and gawking happily at Magrat's efforts. The tiny foreign orchestra struck up another tune, this one actually something that the people seemed to recognize, and the crowd of dancers grew. 

Happiness. Prosperity. The hard work of the men and women of Lancre's towns, villages, and crofts, and of its witches. Young Agnes had searched through her books and Magrat's to find the remedy for the sweating sickness in the winter, and only one old fellow had died of it. In the spring, Nanny Ogg had delivered two sets of twins in the villages and a dozen in the sheepfolds, and both children and lambs were strong and well. Just after Midsummer, Granny Weatherwax had applied her headology to the Slice Way Bandits and made them disband, restoring trade along that small but vital road. It took every hand to make a day like this happen.

Granny swallowed her last morsel of bread and meat. "Young Agnes," she said.

Agnes stopped warbling along with the dance tune and looked about, worried. She had a smear of honey on her chin.

Granny carefully wiped the cucumber sauce from her fingers and pointed at the middle of the table. "Why'd you bring me that partic'lar apple?"

"Only ... it was the last one in that basket, and it was the best I'd seen all season. All of a sudden, I thought, _Granny Weatherwax deserves that apple if anyone does_. That's all."

"That's all," echoed Granny, nodding. "Well, you weren't wrong, but you weren't right, neither."

She drew her folding knife from her pocket, opened it, and picked up the apple. With care, she cut it into three even parts, trimming out the seeds and core from each. She handed the red bit to Agnes, the gold-and-red bit to Nanny, and kept the one that was all gold for herself. "We all deserve to have it," she said.

Together, the three of them ate the apple that young Esme Weatherwax hadn't, so many years ago.

**Author's Note:**

>   * One of the dances that was likely played: [Maltese Bransle](https://youtu.be/tOjYAigX0QQ)
>   * Make your own Klatchian mint drink: [Cariadoc's Sekanjabin](http://www-cs.canisius.edu/~salley/SCA/Recipes/sekanjabin.html)
> 



End file.
